The Lost Sister: A gripping emotional page turner with a breathtaking twist

Daphne faked sympathy. ‘Poor thing.’ But I could see she was thinking of the deadline that day.

‘I’m afraid I have to go,’ I continued. ‘Mike’s out of town.’

‘You’ll miss the meeting. We’re discussing the Christmas do this year.’

‘I know, such a shame,’ I replied with an exaggerated sigh as I backed away. Then I hurried out, breathing in the fresh air as it hit me. I truly felt as though I’d been suffocating in there. But now I felt free, even if it was just for one illicit day.

What should I do?

I looked towards the sea. What else?

When I approached the cave there were more people milling outside. A young man was strumming a guitar, with a girl dancing in circles to the music. They weren’t just teenagers either. There was a tall black man who looked to be in his early forties, and a woman in her fifties too.

Monica had been right. People were living there with the man. Maybe they were homeless, with no choice but to live in the cave after losing their jobs. Or was there more to it than that?

I moved into the shadows of the chalk stacks and pulled a cigarette out from my bag, lighting it and drawing in the intoxicating smoke before blowing it out. I always kept a packet handy. Officially, I gave up just before I got pregnant. But every now and again, I felt the need.

‘They won’t kill you, you know,’ a voice said from behind me.

I turned to see a teenage girl with long, white-blonde hair watching me, a smile on her pretty face. It was one of the schoolgirls from the other day.

‘Do you mean they will kill me?’ I asked.

The girl shook her head. She had bare feet and I could see her nipples through her white summer dress. ‘Contrary to what people say, the cigarette won’t kill you. The disease will have been there for a while.’

My eyes alighted on the girl’s nipples then I looked away, towards the cave. ‘Thanks for that little fact.’

‘You’re the writer, aren’t you?’

I looked back at her in surprise. ‘How do you know?’

‘Idris knows everything.’

‘Idris?’

‘Yes, Idris,’ the girl said, a lazy smile on her face as she nodded over towards him as he painted on the cave walls. ‘He told us you’re a writer.’

I felt my heart hammer like a thunderclap. ‘He told you?’

‘He says it’s important that people like us – creatives – stick together.’

‘Is it now?’ I tapped some ash into a nook in the cliff, trying to appear casual. ‘So how does Idris know I’m a writer then?’

‘It’s like I said, he knows everything.’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘And I suppose you’re going to tell me he walks on water too.’

‘Of course not. But there are more interesting things than walking on water.’ The girl smiled a dreamy smile as she twirled her hair around her fingers. Was she stoned? ‘I write poetry,’ she said, ‘Idris let me write a line on the cave. I live there now. My friend came too but I think she’ll go home tonight, she doesn’t like the fact there’s no shower.’

‘Can’t blame her.’ I looked the girl up and down. She was small-boned. Tiny. Face of a child. But something told me she wasn’t as young as she looked. ‘How old are you?’

‘Seventeen.’ She bit her lip, still smiling. ‘My dad’s gone ballistic.’

‘I bet he has.’

‘Mum’s living with us in the cave now though, and my little brother too. Can I have some?’ the girl asked, gesturing towards my cigarette.

I took a final drag then handed it over to the girl. ‘Finish it. How old’s your brother?’

‘Eight.’

The same age as Becky.

The girl leaned against the rock right next to me, her arm brushing against mine. She put her bare foot up behind her and took a drag.

‘Maybe I’d like to write a novel one day,’ the girl said. ‘Idris told me I need to grow first, mature.’

‘Plenty of people publish novels at your age. Mary Shelley came up with the idea for Frankenstein when she was eighteen.’

The girl rolled her eyes. ‘He meant spiritually, not literally. People are so obsessed with age, with numbers full stop. If people stopped fixating on numbers and statistics, the world would be a better place. I mean, take this recession. All this obsessing with money and numbers, and we’re back to square one. All we need to do is to get into the current.’

‘The current? You mean like the sea?’

The girl smiled mysteriously and shook her head. ‘Nope.’

‘What do you mean then?’

‘You’ll need to come to the cave to find out. Idris explains it best.’

I suddenly felt an irrational anger at the girl, at her dreamy expression, her big nipples and free-living. ‘Might be worth you formulating some of your own thoughts before believing every word of some stranger,’ I snapped.

The girl frowned.

I looked at my wrist for the time. ‘The numbers on my watch are telling me I should go. But enjoy the ciggie!’

I went to walk away but the girl ran after me and grabbed my elbow. ‘Why do you have to go? Come visit the cave! It’s a haven for writers. Maybe you’ll end up living there like me?’

‘Let me think,’ I said, pretending to ponder things. ‘I have a mortgage to pay, a child to support. Plus my husband might have a heart attack at the prospect of no second income.’

The girl let my wrist go, looking at me with sympathy. ‘All numbers. Don’t you see? That sentence you just uttered is all numbers. What if you just left it behind, came to the cave with me right now?’ She put her hand out to me again. ‘Come.’

I hesitated; something inside me was tempted. Then I took in the girl’s stained dress, the dark circles under her eyes. ‘No thanks. The numbers beckon.’

A few minutes later, I was back at the office. It was time I stopped dreaming and faced reality. I was thirty-eight, for God’s sake, not eighteen. I couldn’t just bunk off work.

‘Did you forget something?’ Daphne asked as I walked into the meeting room.

‘Mike turned up in the end so I could come back.’